Top cryptocurrency news: Australian asset manager to offer crypto ETF using uniq

[Coin_Gabbar]

Monochrome Asset Management in Australia has landed the country's first Australian financial services license (AFSL) for a spot crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Speaking to sources, Jeff Yew, CEO of Monochrome Asset Management, said that the AFSL certification is noteworthy since licensed crypto ETFs in Australia have only operated under general financial asset authorization and only indirectly own crypto-assets up to this point.

Yew pointed out that Monochrome's crypto ETFs, on the other hand, would hold the underlying crypto-assets directly and are officially authorized to do so by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

According to the Monochrome executive, the approval is a big step forward for both the advisory industry and retail investors:

“We believe that having options is beneficial to investors, especially when dealing with regulated space, because not all offerings are made equal.”

Investors in Monochrome's ETFs will know that their funds are investing directly in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), and that they are doing it within the regulatory framework developed by ASIC specifically for crypto-assets, he added.

At this stage, there is no specific date set for the launch of the Monochrome Bitcoin ETF (IBTC), but it is likely in September 2022, once the PDS and TMD are released and subject to regulatory approvals.

When the ETFs are launched, Yew says Monochrome will concentrate on BTC and ETH since they are the only two crypto-assets now designated by ASIC as eligible for retail ETF investment.

“As time passes and the industry matures, we will be more receptive to introducing new items.”

A first for a crypto ETF

According to Yew, operating under an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) with a direct crypto-asset authorization means that the fund and the issuer are subject to ASIC's rigorous monitoring.

AFSL licensing brings up new regulated investment alternatives for direct retail investors and registered financial advisors.

The approval of the Australian Financial Services Licence variation implies that ASIC has evaluated and validated that the licensee has the necessary crypto-asset experience to run ETFs that directly hold BTC and ETH.

This provides investors with additional safeguards based on ASIC's Report 705 such as appropriate benchmarking against the spot price and Australian-compliant custody solutions.

Road to approval

Former Binance Australia CEO Jeff Yew founded Monochrome Asset Management in early 2021 to promote institutional adoption of crypto assets in Australia. Their ETF strategy has been in development since February 2022.

Generally, the process for changing a financial services license normally takes six to twelve months, which was the timeline in this case.